


whiskey and rum, blood on my tongue (you haunt me)

by transtarboy



Category: IT (2017)
Genre: Familiars, M/M, Magic AU, Slow Burn, Trans Character, ghost!eddie, losers are about 20 in this, pennywise doesn't exist and did not happen thx, trans richie, witch!richie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-01-23 18:51:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12514064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transtarboy/pseuds/transtarboy
Summary: richie is a witch who just wants to live peacefully with his cat. eddie is a poltergeist with personal space issues. they make it work.





	1. time is an illusion

**Author's Note:**

> let me know what you think! this was really fun to write, and super i'm excited to continue. find me at tozbraks on tumblr! thanks for reading :)

Richie ends the seance and breaks the circle, shaking the excess energy out of his curls with a tattooed hand. His cat, Theodore, jumps off his place on the arm of the couch to rub up against him with a gentle purr. He’s always had the strange ability to tell when it was safe to enter the circle. Richie smiles, petting behind Theodore’s soft ears. For a familiar, his cat was as grounding as they come.

He unfolds his long legs and stands, cleaning up the chalk circle, candles, various plants, and spellbook with a wave of his hand. They all disappear and reappear in their respective places in the blink of an eye. Richie yawns, raising his arms above his head in a long, intensely satisfying stretch. He blinks, looking around the room.

“Finally, some peace and fucking quiet,” he says with relief, trudging to the bathroom. He’s usually pretty good about keeping the dead out of his apartment, but he’d found a wandering spirit in an old building during one of Theodore’s weird cat walks (he needed them, Bengals have unholy amounts of energy and Richie could only fix broken glass so many times before it wouldn’t piece together right anymore) and helped them pass on, causing a couple others hiding in the vicinity to follow him home.

It didn’t really bother him much, but god sometimes they were fucking _loud_ , and who the hell can concentrate on spellwork with some douchebag banging on the walls all day? So, he had to pass them on as well, and they were particularly stubborn, so he feels a little drained.

It would have to be an early night, then.

He takes a quick shower and brushes his teeth, taking the time to look at himself in the mirror. _Delicate-featured_ , Bev had called him once, pretending to get a cut from touching his cheekbone. He kind of has to agree, loathe as he is to give Bev the satisfaction. He has his mother’s high, prominent cheekbones, her dusting of freckles, long eyelashes, and full mouth. He has his father’s strong jaw and chin, his dark, wild curls, and his deep brown eyes.

He ruffles his hair, trying to dry it out. God knows it’ll look like a bird’s nest in the morning, regardless of what he tries to do to it now. He sighs, summoning a loose shirt to sleep in from his bedroom, along with a pair of boxers. He’ll take his potion later this weekend, he decides. He’s too tired to brew.

A loud meow calls for his attention, and he glances down at his feet where Theodore is sitting. Right. Feed the cat so he doesn’t tear the couch up. Again.

Richie shuts the light off in the bathroom and walks the short distance to the kitchen, grabbing Theodore’s thawed meatball from the fridge and plopping it in his dish. Keeping up with his cat’s raw diet was a pain in the ass, but he was much healthier for it, so Richie sucked it up.

The food is gone in less than two minutes, and Richie cleans the dish with another wave of his hand, placing it back on the counter for easy access in the morning. Theodore meows at him again.

“It still feels funky in here, huh buddy?” he asks, picking the cat up and holding him while he looks around the apartment. He was sure he’d removed all the dead from their home, but there’s still a weird, lingering energy.

Oh well.

He’d deal with it in the morning. He carries Theodore to the bedroom and shuts the door behind him with his foot. Theodore jumps out of his arms and begins finding a place to settle for the night while Richie pulls back the sheets and slides in.

“Off,” he says, pointing to the ceiling light. It flickers for a moment, and then shuts off. He rolls his eyes, settling into the pillow. The only light remaining in the room is peeking in through the blinds on the windows. It’s either the moon or a streetlamp, but he’s asleep before he can even begin to debate it with himself.

* * *

 

Richie wakes up with the sun in his eyes and Theodore sitting on his chest. He groans, covering his face with his hands.

“Time,” he casts in a muffled voice. He feels a tingle in his palm, and lifts it away from his face, squinting to read it.

‘Time is an illusion’ his palm spells out, and he curses himself for creating that stupid spell in the first place. He remembers what he was thinking at the time, too. That it would be fucking hilarious to prank himself. And that is exactly why he never gets anything done.

Theodore leaps off of his chest and stands near the door, meowing. Richie rolls out of bed, summoning his glasses from wherever he left them last night. They hit his palm softly, and he clumsily shoves them onto his face as he exits the bedroom.

He feeds Theodore again, thinking over what his schedule was like today. Bill had called him yesterday to see if Richie would come over and let him and Georgie play for a little while, and Richie _did_ promise he’d show up today, so that was first on the agenda.

The apartment still feels weird, and as he walks into the bathroom, he notices his medicine cabinet is wide open, most of its contents spilled onto the tile. His first reaction is to look at Theodore, but he had been closed up in the room with him all night. Unless his cat has suddenly learned how to teleport –which, not entirely unlikely– he still had an unwelcome guest in the house.

“I do _not_ have time to fucking deal with this right now,” Richie complains, squinting his eyes and looking around the bathroom suspiciously. “Whoever you are, leave my cat alone and stop making a goddamn mess in my house, got me? I’ll send your ass off later.”

He waves his hand and rearranges his medicine cabinet, and it shuts on its own. He then brushes his teeth, washes his face, and tries to make his hair function a little bit before giving up. He dresses quickly, having read the digital (and actually useful) clock in his living room, which told him he was late as fuck and needed to move his ass.

Richie leaves the apartment in a hurry, just barely remembering to grab his keys. “Bye Theo, be good! And fuck you, whoever you are!”

The door shuts behind him, and he makes his way to Bill’s house.

* * *

When he arrives, the garage door is already open, and Bill is sitting in a chair holding Georgie’s favorite stuffed animal. Richie parks, stepping out of the car and into the cool October air.

“Hey, man,” he greets Bill, who stands up to give him a hug. “Sorry I’m late, I… don’t have excuse I’m just shit at being on time.”

Bill laughs. “Yeah, I kn-kn-know.”

Richie grins, rubbing his hands together. “Well, let me see the elephant. It should be a lot easier this time, since we’ve been calling on him pretty consistently.”

Bill hands the stuffed animal over, and Richie pulls a candle and chalk out of the backpack he brought with him. He sets the candle on Bill’s workbench, snaps his fingers to light it, and then goes about drawing a space for an entire room to play in. It spans most of the garage, avoiding the workbench, a couple toolboxes, and the rest of Bill’s junk. When he’s done, he sits in the middle of the circle, and invites Bill into it.

“Think only about Georgie, remember? We don’t want to invite anyone else into the circle. Just him. He’s already around here, so it shouldn’t take too long. Oh, shit. Grab everything you wanted him to interact with before I call him.”

“R-right,” Bill agrees, picking up the big plastic container that held Georgie’s toys. He sets up the car track, the plastic dinosaurs, and the mini pull-back-motor boat he used to love. He leaves the rest inside of the box. Georgie would let Richie know which ones he wanted to play with. Bill then settles in front of him, and Richie extends the stuffed animal so Bill can hold it too.

“Ready?” He asks Bill. He nods. Richie takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and opens himself up to the surrounding energies.

“Georgie? Your brother’s here. He wants to see you again. He brought you a bunch of toys, and I have to say they all look like lots of fun, if you want to come play with him,” he calls out softly, knowing the little boy was close. He waits a few seconds, and then feels a gentle pressure against the boundary of the circle.

Richie opens his eyes, looking over Bill’s shoulder to see the smiling, semi-translucent face of Georgie Denbrough.

He reaches over and places a finger on the closest line of the boundary he can reach, breaking it for a split second to let Georgie in, and then closing it again. Georgie immediately runs over to hug his brother, just as he always does.

“Billy!” He shouts excitedly, hanging on to him. Bill lets out a small puff of air, meeting Richie’s eyes quickly.

“I f-feel heavy,” he says, hope lining his voice. “I-I-Is he…?”

Richie grins and pushes his glasses up his nose. “He’s hangin’ off you like a monkey.”

Bill’s face lights up.

“H-h-hi, Georgie,” he greets, and his little brother pats his head.

The last few times they had called Georgie, they worked on teaching him how to interact with the toys. The dead don’t always have enough energy to manipulate objects in their world, and with Georgie being so young… Richie made an exception for him and did something he rarely, if ever, allows the dead to do.

He let Georgie borrow some of his energy.

It doesn’t have a big effect on him, it just makes him a little drowsy after a while. Bill has no idea that Georgie isn’t strong enough to do it on his own, and Richie isn’t going to tell him. He lets his friend continue to think the seance is taking its toll, and he gives him the opportunity to be with the little brother he lost so young, and so early. Georgie was the last person on Earth who could have deserved what happened to him, and Bill had been broken for years without him. So when Richie realized what he was seeing in the corner of his eye whenever he visited was _Georgie_ , well.

He couldn’t tell Bill fast enough. It was worth the extra hours he needed the night of.

He tries to give them their privacy, but Bill never smiles like that anymore, and it was nice to see his best friend happy. Georgie pushes the boat around, picks up the dinosaurs and runs around, making them fly like airplanes. Bill just watches in amazement; he can’t see Georgie at all, so to him it just looks like the toy is flying in the air by itself.

Georgie gets tired quickly, though, and he drapes himself across his big brother’s back and complains. Richie laughs, prompting Bill to ask what Georgie said.

“He said he’s pooped,” Richie tells him, and Bill laughs too. He grows quiet after a moment.

“D-do you think we sh-sh-should…” Bill starts quietly, picking at a loose stitch in his jeans. He can’t seem to finish his sentence, but he doesn’t need to.

Richie looks at little Georgie Denbrough, forever in his yellow raincoat, forever six and a half years old. He watches as he hugs his brother around the neck and closes his eyes, content.

“No,” Richie says, watching Georgie doze off. “He’s happy with you. I won’t take him away from that. I won’t do that to either of you.”

Bill smiles, blinking away tears. “I’m happy he’s here, too.”

And that was that.

* * *

Later on, after Georgie’s disappeared again and the circle’s been broken, he says goodbye to Bill and heads home. Usually he would stay, but he doesn’t want to leave Theodore with whatever the fuck is in his house for too long. A witch’s familiar is more important than his own heart.

Plus, Theodore’s really cute, and it would suck if he got possessed.

When he gets back to his apartment, he heads towards the front door immediately. Usually he would stop for a smoke, but he had been gone long enough.

He hastily unlocks the door and steps inside, closing it behind him.

The apartment looks completely normal, save for the fact that everything was all over the place. Now, Richie is pretty fucking sure indoor tornados are _not_ a thing, so his only guess is that whoever was in his home right now was just an asshole. All of his books had been knocked off the shelves– _thrown_ it looks like, god knows why, his vials of herbs and various potions scattered messily across the counter, his TV remote is… shattered. How the _f–_

Wait. Where’s his cat?

“Theodore?” he calls out anxiously, stepping over the fallen books and peering into the kitchen. Nothing. He tries the bedroom, and doesn’t find him there either. The bond _feels_ fine, but god knows if he’s gotten out, or being held _hostage_ by this _douchebag entity,_ or–

There’s a distinct scratching noise coming from the inside of the pantry door.

He walks over to the pantry and opens the door, bracing himself. Theodore immediately jumps out and onto his shoulder, meowing angrily.

“There you are, dude. Fuck that was scary,” he sighs in relief, petting his disgruntled familiar behind the ears. “I know, I’m sorry. I’ll take you with me next time. Did the fucking thing put you in there?”

Theodore meows angrily again, a high, shrill note.

“I’m gonna kick his ass, kiddo. Just wait. Let me clean up and then I’ll rip this guy a new one.” Theodore seems placated by that, and jumps out of his arms and towards the fridge. Ah, dinnertime.

As he places the meatball into Theodore’s dish, he looks around. It’s a fucking disaster, but he needs it gone before he can contact the shithead who did it.

He sighs, getting to work on putting everything back in its place. He’s too tired to use a spell, Georgie sucked up most of his energy playing today.

He makes his way to the coffee table in front of the couch, leaning over to pick up the journals that had been knocked over. When he picks his head up to check on Theodore, there’s a face staring right back at him.

"What are you doing?"

Richard screams, jumping back and tripping over one of the legs of the table, crashing into the couch and knocking his head against the wall.

" _Fuck_ that hurt," he groans, rubbing the sore spot on his head. He stares wide-eyed as a semi-corporeal figure forms in front of him.

It's... laughing.

"Holy shit, that was amazing. Thank you. Seriously, thank you," the figure laughs, holding its arms around its stomach.

"Who the fuck are you? Are you the asshole that’s been fucking around with my stuff?" Richie demands, a spell on his lips and a furious tingle in his fingers despite his exhaustion.

The figure pretends to wipe a tear from its eye. "Yep, that'd be me."

It holds out a translucent hand.

"Eddie Kaspbrak. Nice to meet you."


	2. red

Richie sits on his couch, nursing an enamel mug filled to the brim with a light pink liquid. It’s a hearty mixture of 10% rose extract, 10% cranberry juice, and 80% vodka. It helps. Usually. 

Right now, he has a fucking poltergeist to deal with. And honestly, if people think  _ he’s  _ annoying, they really have no idea what that word means.

“So… single, huh? Go ahead, ask me how I know.” 

Richie sighs. “How?” 

“Because your bathroom is disgusting and your underwear is all over the place,” Eddie observes, a faintly disgusted expression on his face. 

“My underwear is all over the place because you threw my shit everywhere, dickhead.” 

“Oh yeah. Forgot about that,” he shrugs. “Still doesn’t explain the bathroom, though.” 

Richie chugs his drink. 

“Alright,” he announces, clapping his hands together. “I need to die for a few hours, and I would  _ super  _ appreciate you not fucking up my apartment again. I’m sending you off first thing in the morning. Cool?” 

Eddie continues to sift through the things still strewn about. “Interesting plan. Sure.” 

Richie doesn’t have time to decipher his cryptid tone. He rises from the couch, drops his mug in the sink, scoops Theodore up, and heads to bed. He’ll figure it out in the morning. 

“Goodnight!” Eddie cheerfully calls out behind him, and Richie shuts the door with a firm click.

* * *

 

In the morning, the apartment is silent, so Richie is immediately suspicious. When he opens his bedroom door, he’s a little more than surprised to see all of his belongings back in place. The apartment actually looked somewhat organized again; possibly even better than it was originally.

“Where are you, you little bastard? I know you’re still here,” Richie says under his breath, right in time for Eddie to appear in front of him. He’s proud to say he only startles a little bit. 

“Because that’s how you talk to people who clean up for you,” Eddie says dryly, crossing his arms. The ghost was shorter than him, dressed in a pale yellow shirt and tiny (ridiculously tiny) red running shorts, grey sneakers on his feet and an actual fucking fanny pack around his waist, of all things. It’s most likely what he died in. The only other option is that he chose to appear this way and well… god knows why anyone would do  _ that. _

He has to admit, however, that Eddie is… kinda cute. His ability to see the dead allows him to see more detail than most, including things like color and, more often than not, faces. That wasn’t always a blessing, as a lot of spirits stuck on earth died horrifically, but Eddie was entirely intact and well, attractive. Dark, soft-looking brown hair combed to the side, kind brown eyes, and an open, young face. He had to have died around the same age Richie is now, he couldn’t be much younger or any older. It makes Richie curious to know if  _ he  _ knew what happened, but really, when was there ever a good time to ask how someone died? He just needs to move him on and forget it happened. 

“Yeah, when they’re the ones who wrecked it in the first place,” he says, walking past Eddie to grab some breakfast. He’s officially two days behind on his potion, so he starts putting that together in a pan between bites of his cereal. He knows the recipe by heart; one cup of skim milk with vitamin D, a fourth cup of plain yogurt, a teaspoon of fenugreek extract, a drop of shifter sweat (nasty, but it’s the one actually essential ingredient), and a quarter teaspoon of epimedium. 

It tastes fucking horrible, but it does the job. He lets it simmer and finishes his cereal. 

“I already said I was sorry for that.”

“That must have happened while I was asleep because I  _ definitely  _ never heard a fucking apology.” 

“Shit. Okay, I’m sorry. I was just trying to figure out where I was and uh, I didn’t exactly understand how to work this whole–” he gestures to his body “thing on this side of the veil yet.” Eddie fiddles with the zipper on his fanny pack, looking sheepish. 

Richie sighs. “Fine. Speaking of, how did you get here anyway? I’m really careful about not letting anybody sneak past me when I pass others along. You shouldn’t have been able to.” 

Eddie tilts his head, giving Richie a confused look. “What do you mean? You asked me to come through.” 

“Um, no I fucking did not,” Richie snorts, stirring his potion, sprinkling in some sugar and cinnamon to make it palatable. 

“Um, yes you fucking did,” Eddie mocks, peeking over the counter to look into the saucepan. “What’s that?” 

“I think I would have remembered calling a dead person to come party with me. And–” he pushes up his glasses and looks Eddie up and down, lingering on the fanny pack. “No offense Eds, but you don’t exactly look like the partying type.” 

Eddie makes an affronted sound. “I party! Partied. I partied hard. This fanny pack was full of… fake IDs and ecstasy. And don’t call me that. Also, you didn’t answer my question.” 

Richie lets out a short bark of laughter. “Sure it was. I bet you kept bug spray and allergy medication in there. And you didn’t answer mine.” 

The ghost huffs. “I  _ told  _ you. You invited me.” 

“No, I didn’t,” Richie argues, starting to get annoyed. “And even if I somehow  _ did,  _ why did you come?” 

If ghosts could blush, Richie is almost certain Eddie would have. He starts tugging on the end of his shirt, zipping and unzipping his pack, looking anywhere but Richie. The witch shuts off the stove, pouring his potion into a heatsafe mug. He grabs it, does a small spiral motion with his index finger over the potion, and then leans against the counter to let it cool. He raises an eyebrow at Eddie. “Well?” 

Eddie’s nervous demeanor changes and he drops his hands. “I wasn’t gonna pass up a free ride.” 

And then he disappears. 

“Well shit,” Richie announces to the emptiness of his apartment. Theodore meows from between his feet and rubs his head against Richie’s leg. 

He chugs his potion, grimacing at the taste, and then goes to shower. He has actual shit to do today, and waiting around for a flighty poltergeist isn’t one of them. 

* * *

Richie has to make a living somehow, and he does that by performing pass-ons for homeowners, and running a small unconventional potion shop on the side. He’s not rich by any means, but he’s good at what he does, and he can eat at Chili’s whenever he wants, so it’s enough. 

Plus, he was able to save up enough to adopt Theodore from the magical creature shelter he’d been fostering him from for two years, and they celebrated with cupcakes. 

Honestly, he loves his niche job. He creates potions for people with magick and/or supernatural blood; primarily medicinal and healing. Like, for example, his coveted and sought after hangover potion. It was how he made his name in the potions market. For people with magick or supernatural blood, getting drunk is substantially harder, and by correlation, the hangovers tend to be debilitating. Everyone has a job to get to the in the morning, a family to take care of, a dog to walk, a dragon to feed. Not everybody can afford to spend the day in bed after a night of letting loose, so, Richie created a hangover cure that never failed. Of course, he had been his only test subject, so he had to get blind drunk and keep it at his bedside for the morning when he needed to test it. He woke up without even the ability to open his eyes or move his fucking head. He had to summon the potion over and waterfall it into his barely-open mouth, but as soon as he swallowed, he thought he must have dreamt the whole thing. The empty bottles on his bed said otherwise. And that’s how it started.

Today he has to do a couple of deliveries in the neighborhood, so he packs ten of his pre-bottled potions he’d made that weekend into his backpack. 

“Wanna go on a field trip, buddy?” He asks Theodore, who meows and then runs to grab his harness from the hook next to the door. Richie laughs at his eagerness and hooks him up, casting an energy tether between them. No one can see it, and Theo isn’t likely to run off, but he always does it whenever they go out. Shit’s scary out there, and for all the power his cat carries underneath his household pet camouflage, the tether ensures Richie takes half of any harm that comes to him. 

It sounds like overkill, but Derry’s always been a dangerous town, and Richie protects his own. He always has. 

He decides to do his deliveries on foot. Each of the locations are within a few blocks, and it’s nice outside. His regulars all live in inconspicuous apartment complexes, and as usual they invite him in, and as usual he declines. Enchantress, werewolf, and siren, in that order. They all love Theodore, in all his charm, and Richie estimates he spends at  _ least  _ half an hour at each drop off, just because no one could stop petting his familiar. He doesn’t mind, though. Each of them triple up on supplies every time he comes around, so he’s left with one vial. 

Richie visits the barrens, where a lot of the supernatural community tend to gather. He trades his last hangover cure for some sweat for his own personal potion from an extremely eager shapeshifter, and considers the day a success. 

Him and Theodore walk home in leisure, his cat chasing after birds halfheartedly while he carefully maintained the energy tether and kept an eye on him. They get back to his apartment around 4:30pm, and when they walk in, Eddie’s sitting on the couch lazily flipping through one of his spellbooks sitting on the table with a wave of his hand. 

Richie severs the tether between him and Theodore, walking to the kitchen to feed him. As Theodore eats, he decides whether or not he wants pizza, and whether or not he needs to pass Eddie on just yet. 

It was kind of nice having somebody there with him, even if it  _ is  _ an uninvited, fanny-packing wearing poltergeist. 

“Do you want to watch a movie?” 

Eddie’s head snaps up, and he looks at Richie with an expression he can’t quite decipher. 

“Yeah,” Eddie says, soft. “I do.” 

“Okay,” Richie answers. He didn’t expect him to actually say yes. “Do ghosts eat ghost pizza? You can have some after I eat all of the real pizza.” 

Eddie throws a pillow at him. “No, but we do eat souls.” 

“Good thing I sold mine.” 

“Just put the fucking movie on, asshole.” 

Richie winks and then picks up the phone to order.

* * *

They settle into each other’s spaces with relative ease, sitting on opposite ends of the small couch that faces the television. Richie chooses Edward Scissorhands, and Eddie doesn’t think he’s funny at all, but he enjoys the movie nonetheless. The witch eats his pineapple and pepperoni pizza, ignoring Eddie’s frequent complaints that the combination is “honestly borderline blasphemy”. Richie just rolls his eyes; it’s delicious and Eddie’s obviously jealous he can’t eat any. 

Theodore strolls up halfway through the movie to sit between them, meowing at the space where Eddie’s sitting, who looks up at Richie in alarm and leans away slightly. 

“Theo’s my familiar,” Richie explains, barely keeping in his laughter. “He’s a magical creature with the outward appearance of a regular cat. It’s a survival tactic. He can see you, though. He can see everything the way I do.” 

Eddie nods, settling down again. “And can all, uh… wait what are you supposed to be again?” 

“I’m a witch, jackass.” 

“I thought witches were supposed to be women.” 

“Warlock is a ridiculous word and I refuse to be a part of it,” Richie explains, narrowing his eyes at Eddie. The ghost raised his hands in a placating manner. 

“Alright, fine. Can all  _ witches  _ see dead people, then?” 

Richie shakes his head. “No, it’s just an ability some distant great relation oh-so-fortunately passed on to me.” 

“That must suck. I can’t – _ couldn’t, _ fuck– even handle dealing with alive people. It must get pretty tiring to have to deal with that.” Eddie looks at his hands, feeling uncomfortable. 

“Hey-a now, Eddie Spaghetti,” Richie says in a truly horrible Italian accent, trying to lighten the mood. “It’s not-a all-a bad.” 

Eddie looks at him from the corner of his eye and smiles tentatively. Richie grins, reaching over to give him a playful punch in the shoulder, though he knows Eddie has no solid form and it’ll just pass right through.

Except it doesn’t go right through. It hits a solid, petite shoulder with a soft thump, and then a crackle of electricity sparks at the point of contact and travels up Richie’s arm in a glowing red, erratic,  _ alive,  _ current, throwing him back against the couch with great force. The television glitches and then shuts off, leaving them in silence, and all the lights dim dramatically, only to brighten once again. Theodore leaps off of the couch and hides behind the table, ears flat, hissing. 

“Shit!” 

“What the  _ fuck?”  _

The electricity is gone as quick as it came, and the only evidence it had been there at all is a brand new,  _ burning, fucking shit _ , glowing red line around his left pinky finger. A quick glance finds Eddie holding his left hand too, a grimace on his face as he inspects it. 

“What the hell was  _ that?” _ Richie leans forward without thinking and grabs Eddie’s wrist to compare their fingers. 

The lines are identical in size and color, Eddie’s being fainter because he doesn’t have a solid form. The ghost’s hand is trembling, and Richie tsks. 

“I’m trying to investigate, Edward! Keep still.” 

“Richie.”

“What?” 

“Can you get your fucking hands off me? You were just eating greasy pizza with them, like, two minutes ago.” 

Richie laughs like Eddie’s the most ridiculous person in the world. “You’re a  _ ghost,  _ Eds. I couldn’t touch you even if I wanted to.”

“How would you explain what you’re doing right now then?” Eddie asks in an irritated voice. 

“I’m–” Richie stops short, looking at where his hand is wrapped around Eddie’s wrist. Eddie’s translucent wrist. The wrist that is translucent because it belongs to a fucking _ghost,_ and there is no way in hell this is happening right now. 

He tightens his hand, and Eddie huffs. “Let go, Richie.” 

Richie let go. He stays where he is, though, and pokes Eddie’s shoulder. Solid. He pokes his thigh. Solid. His cheek. Squishy, but solid. His hair, really damn soft. Eddie’s hair is soft. He should  _ not  _ be able to feel that. He shouldn’t be able to feel anything at all. 

“Well fuck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the wait! i got swept up in stranger things 2. let me know what you thought, thanks for reading! :D


	3. breathe

They (and by they, he absolutely did  _not_ mean Eddie's lazy, unhelpful ass) spent the last three hours combing through every book Richie owned, trying to figure out what the hell just happened to them. There was no way in hell Richie should be able to touch him. He's never been able to touch a ghost before, not that he ever tried or wanted to. The electricity and the new bands around their fingers was particularly jarring, too. He'd never seen anything like it. And that was fucking scary, to say the least. 

"Maybe it was just... particularly strong static electricity." 

Eddie didn't look impressed. "That's the best you could come up with?" 

"At least I'm trying!" Richie pouted, huffing testily and continuing the skim the enchantment book in front of him. 

"I am literally dead, Richie. Dead. A whole dead person. How could I possibly contribute?" Eddie rolled his eyes at him, absentmindedly thumbing the red band. Richie himself was resisting the urge to do it, too. It tingled, in a pleasant way. It felt nice to touch. Warm. 

"If you're solid enough to touch my hot bod, you're solid enough to turn a fucking page," Richie retorted. "Plus, you were doing that shit earlier! With your _mind._ So, I call bullshit on your logic and demand your labor." 

Eddie sighed, caving. Richie grinned triumphantly and set a book down in front of him. 

**_Passive Curses and How to Identify Them_ **

It looked old as fuck, and it was, but it was one of the few books Richie owned that might actually have some answers for them. 

After another mind-numbing hour, Eddie let out a curious noise. 

"What? Did you see something?" Richie asked eagerly, immediately sliding over and bumping their shoulders together accidentally. They both shivered; it was a weird feeling. 

"Maybe," Eddie said. He pointed to a passage on the left page. "Look." 

_Passive curses stretch beyond the mortal world; the dead are not free from them. Visible signs of passive curses manifest only during physical contact between cursed individuals, thus making identification difficult if one of the individuals is deceased. These curses almost always manifest as electricity between two people currently living on the mortal plane. The color varies, depending on both the people and the curse. Blue electricity indicates a simple curse, most likely thrown by an inexperienced caster. Purple is more advanced, and more complicated to break. Red electricity indicates an expert-level caster, and, unfortunately, a more sinister curse. These typically can only be broken by the caster themselves, or someone of equal or greater power._

"Fuck." 

"I know," Eddie replied, slumping back into the couch. "So what? We're... cursed? How can we both be cursed if we've never even met before?" 

"Not even just that," Richie sighed, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. "We're cursed by someone who knows what they're doing. And we have no fucking clue who or what it is." 

Neither of them spoke for a while. Richie stared at his blurry hands, suddenly feeling much older than he was. The perks of being a witch were immeasurable. He wouldn't trade it for the world. But the downsides... 

The downsides really sucked ass. 

He felt something brush his arm, and quickly shoved his glasses back onto his face. Eddie was sitting much closer than he had been before, and he was tracing the cluster of deep red roses tattooed on Richie's bicep. "What are these for?" 

"My best friends," Richie replied, a surge of affection rising in his chest as he looked at them. He got the piece done on his 18th birthday. All of the losers came with him, and by the end of his session, the tattoo parlor was more than happy to kick them out. He loved his friends and all of the loudness than accompanied them whenever they were all together, but his feelings weren't universal. "Bev, Mike, Ben, Bill, and Stan," he clarified, pointing each of the roses out in order. He had a specific placement for each of them. Not because it mattered, but because it was like having a small piece of them with him at all times. It was comforting. 

"But," Eddie murmured, his eyebrows furrowing. "That's only five." 

"So?" Richie asked, confused. "I wasn't a very popular kid growing up. Thanks for the reminder, asshole."

"There are six roses." 

Richie stared at his arm. That couldn't be right.  _One, two, three, four, five, s–_

_Six._

Theodore meowed. 

"Do you know something about this?" Richie asked him. Theodore jumped up on the couch and stood in Richie's lap. He put one of his paws on Richie's chest and the other right over where Eddie's finger was still touching one of the roses. 

"Meow." 

"Thanks for clearing it up, Theo. It all makes so much sense now," Richie rolled his eyes, petting his familiar behind the ears. The cat made a weird huffing noise and went to go curl up on his bed again. 

"Okay... so... how do we fix this?"

"That repulsed by my touch, are ya, Kaspbrak?"

"That's not– that is very obviously not the fucking point," Eddie rolled his eyes, but his cheeks pinked noticeably. 

"Well, all I'm hearing now is that you're  _not_ repulsed by my– ow!" Richie exclaimed, rubbing at the spot on his arm that Eddie pinched.

"Beep beep, Richie!" Eddie said with a stern voice, but his expression betrayed his mirth. Richie reacted automatically, flipping Eddie the bird and turning back to his book. It wasn't until a few minutes later that he realized it. 

He shifted to face Eddie slowly. "What... did you say?"

Eddie gave him a confused look, swiping a hand through his hair to fix his falling bangs. "I didn't say anything, weirdo." 

"No, before," Richie insisted, his hands starting to sweat. "What did you say?" 

"...Beep beep?" 

Richie's breath caught. "How do you know that? My friends made it up when we were kids, Eddie. How could you  _know_ that?" 

"I don't... know," Eddie replied, staring at him with wide eyes. "It just came out." 

Richie stared at Eddie's translucent face, before tentatively reaching out to touch it. Eddie sucked in a breath as his fingers met his skin. It felt strange, like touching water. He could feel him, but he couldn't ignore the thought that if he pressed too hard, Eddie would dissipate, and he would be alone again. He ran the tips of his fingers along the ghost's jawline, lost in thought. "Who  _are_ you? And why can't I shake the feeling that we've met before?" 

Eddie stared at him, something strange behind his eyes. Then, as if someone had colored him in, Eddie's figure became considerably more opaque. 

"Holy shit!" Richie exclaimed, jumping backwards. Eddie startled, frantically looking around. 

"What? What is it?!" Eddie's chest was heaving, his hands scrambling along his fanny pack. Richie watched with wide eyes as Eddie unzipped the pack, only to find it empty. Of course it was. Ghosts didn't carry items into the afterlife, just typically their clothing and whatever accessories they're wearing at the time. Or, occasionally, the outfit they wish to be seen in. It was a fickle thing, and honestly Richie didn't have all the details down yet. He just passed them on. He didn't typically hold conversations, especially not the kind where he asks if  _hey, did you die in those neon leggings or do you just dig them a lot?_

Eddie was panicking now, gasping from deep within his chest, frantically rummaging in his fanny pack as if whatever he was looking for would magically appear, and Richie's not sure if he understood that he didn't actually need to breath anymore. He acted without thinking. 

Richie grabbed one of Eddie's hands and put it on his own chest, and then put his hand on Eddie's (much more solid, holy  _fucking_ hell) chest. "Breathe, Eds. With me. In," he sucked in a big, long breath, nodding his head and Eddie met his eyes and did his best to copy him. "Out, good," they released it together. "In, out. You got it, there we go." 

Richie closed his eyes as he felt for Eddie's breathing, and suddenly his mind was flooded with images. _Him –a much younger version of him– and a small, brown-haired boy sitting on his old bedroom floor, his back to facing Richie's point of view. The boy looked like he was using an inhaler, and their hands were on each other's chests. He watched as the younger version of him did the same thing he was doing now, coaching the smaller boy into steadying his breathing, his eyes magnified significantly by those horrendously thick glasses he used to wear. "Breathe, Eds. With me," the younger-him said, and Richie watched in confusion as the same scenario played out in his head, almost like a vision, only it couldn't have been. He was just a kid here, barely 16. And it didn't feel like a premonition, it felt like..._

_A memory._

_Except he doesn't remember this at all. He doesn't_ know  _this boy. Does he? Richie stumbled backwards, trying to find a way out of this weird dream-like state, and accidentally knocked one of his action figures off of his bedside table. The skinny boy whipped around, standing up and away from younger-him quickly. Richie looked at him in confused horror. He knew that face. How could he know that face?_ _His eyes quickly scanned the boy's outfit. Yellow shirt. Red shorts. And around his waist?_

_A black fanny pack._

Richie was thrown out of the memory forcefully, his head aching. He blinked rapidly, the light from his living room suddenly blinding. As he regained some semblance of sight, he realized he was on the floor, and that Eddie was kneeling over him, his hands on either side of his face. "Richie! Jesus  _fuck,_ I thought you were having a fucking seizure! Something happened, I don't know how to explain it, but Richie I– I know you." 

Richie couldn't speak. He just continued to look up at the boy above him. Eddie looked almost angelic with the way the light formed around his head. He grew up to be so stupidly handsome, just like Richie always knew he would. "Richie?" 

"Hey, Spaghetti Man," Richie croaked out, a dumb grin forming on his face. Eddie blinked in shock, obviously not expecting Richie to have seen the same thing he did. Richie sat up on his elbows, something inside of him settling. "Where the fuck have you been?"

Eddie threw himself at Richie with uncharacteristic shamelessness. Richie let out a small 'oof' as their bodies collided, but he wrapped his arms around Eddie tightly regardless. Eddie was shuddering against him, his face shoved into the crook of Richie's shoulder. His voice came out muffled and quiet. "What happened to me?" 

"I don't know," Richie said. "But I'm going to fucking find out, Eds. I promise. And then," he pulled away from Eddie to look him in the eyes. "I'm going to find the motherfucker who did this to you." 

The radio crackled ominously as the lights flickered and waned around them. His fingers tingled with the urge to do _something._ He felt a horrible, ugly rage burn inside of him. He'd tear the entire fucking veil down if that's what it took. The magick laws could go fuck themselves. He was going to bring Eddie home. But first... 

"I need to make some calls." 

* * *

 

Convincing the others to come back to Derry was... difficult, to say the least. It was the middle of the semester, and Stan nearly ripped him a knew one when he suggested midterms weren't as important as what he needed them for. Somehow he managed, but Mike and Bill did 80% of the work with their (admittedly killer) puppy-dog eyes over their group video chat. He owed them one, even though they had no idea what was going on either. 

Richie ordered a shit ton of pizza earlier, and now they were just waiting for the group to show up. Mike picked them all up from the airport and volunteered to grab Bill as well, so Richie was left to pace his apartment and wonder how the fuck he was going to explain this situation. 

Eddie was sitting on the couch, almost entirely corporeal from the incident the week before. Theodore was stretched out in his lap, demanding to be petted. He looked about as anxious as Richie felt. He didn't remember any of the others apparently, and Richie knew they didn't remember him, so this was going to be... something. He had no idea what to do if he was the only one who could  _see_ Eddie, either.

The doorbell rang, and Richie ran to let his friends in. 

"Hey!" He greeted them, and was immediately pulled into a giant group hug. He rolled his eyes good-naturedly as Bev ruffled his hair. Bill ran directly for the pizza, but he stopped short right in front of the coffee table where the boxes were stacked. 

"Uh... Richie?" 

"Yeah?" Richie replied, ducking a playful flick from Ben after he poked him in the side. 

"Who's that?" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm so sorry this took ages but here's some! plot! tell me what you thought? :D


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